Programme-makers frequently regard TV criticism as an act of violence. If that's the case, then the brutality is specifically baby-battering: most shows are reviewed only in their earliest days and then left neglected, even if they carry on for months or even years afterwards.

So, to redress this tendency, I checked up on the state of recent high-profile launches or relaunches: Daybreak (ITV1), 10 O'Clock Live (Channel 4), The One Show (BBC1) and OK! TV (Channel 5). To what extent do new formats adjust in response to critical complaint or ratings failure? Does the media insistence on reflecting the fresh fail to acknowledge the possibility that formats mature and improve?

The show's initial detractors highlighted two particular deficiencies: an overemphatic set (featuring a vast glass window) and the failure of the hosts to find a tone appropriate to a slot that is notoriously difficult because the majority of the audience is in a rush or a grump.

The concept of a window on to London remains – although a sofa curiously reminiscent of the GMTV one now stands in front of it – and this is one element that definitely has improved with time. The lighter mornings mean that the presenters have an enticing skyline behind them, rather than the chilly or rainy black backdrop of the opening months: an inevitable, although apparently unforeseen, consequence of launching a see-through studio in the autumn.

Chiles and Bleakley, though, are no sparkier than they were at the start. If anything, they seem more uncomfortable, as perhaps would anyone who was in the position of getting up at 3am to do in public a job in which, by noisy consensus, they are failing. Both hosts look exhausted and haunted, and the easy repartee that encouraged ITV to poach them has almost completely disappeared.

It so happens that Daybreak is sponsored by Clipper Tea, a link established during commercial breaks through a little skit in which the elements of a tea party have a twee conversation: "Hello, spoon." "Hello, teapot." Alarmingly, those basic exchanges between a piece of crockery and a utensil now look like Cowardesque dialogue in comparison with the ad-libbed chat between Adrian and Christine. Frequently, one simply repeats what the other has said. "That sand gets everywhere," she grimly quipped after some piece involving beaches. "Yeah, that sand gets everywhere," he glumly echoed.

There's also a clear suspicion that the bad buzz around the show is deterring publicists from offering A-list talent. On one recent morning, the star turns were Jedward, launching a campaign to redesign lunchboxes (Chiles so despondent that he didn't even attempt a smutty pun), and Ashley Walters, plugging the DVD release of what Adrian and Christine's autocue called "the hit drama Outcasts". In fact, the drama was such a disaster on BBC1 that it was kicked out of peak-time into a late-night slot. Either the researcher didn't know this, or was too superstitious to plant the seed of thought that Daybreak may follow a similar trajectory and soon become a closedown show called Nightcap.

While Daybreak remains defiantly (or defeatedly) similar to its beginnings, Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live does show some signs of structural adjustment, which, coincidentally or not, address objections made by reviewers of January's opening programme.

Critics complained, for example, that the content was relentlessly verbal – with Jimmy Carr, Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell delivering exaggerated rants in rotation – and, in the progress to last Thursday's 12th edition (of a scheduled first series of 15), the visual material has progressively increased. Carr's opening monologue is now illustrated with punningly captioned pictures, and the comedian also performs more and more dressing-up sketches.

Two flaws, though, are stubbornly consistent. Lauren Laverne, whose original duties amounted to little more than introducing the boys, has not been permitted much evolution, and the first show's unrelieved liberal agenda continues: the four main performers, the majority of the guests and most of the audience seem to be on the same side over most of the issues.

Even so, I think this show can justifiably claim to have suffered at the beginning from the seeming eagerness of some journalists, bloggers and tweeters to see Carr, Mitchell and Brooker flop: late-night satire shows have generally launched newcomers, and there was a slightly smug sense of a celebrity benefit concert about this one. But, three months on, 10 O'Clock Live maintains a high gag rate and, last week, a terrific bust-up over phone-hacking between John Prescott and a News of the World journalist.

A close copy of America's Entertainment Tonight, the programme routinely begins with the continuity announcer warning about "flashing images", a precaution necessary because it consists almost wholly of footage of stars being pursued by paparazzi. And, appropriately for a show with two abbreviations in its name, OK! TV is spoken largely in VIP shorthand, most sentences referring to "R-Patz", "J-Lo" or both.

Even by the anodyne standards of daytime, co-hosts Kate Walsh (a late replacement for Denise van Outen) and Matt Johnson specialise in soft questioning. Quizzing an actor who had appeared with one leading American movie star, Walsh challenged: "Michelle Pfeiffer – as gorgeous in the flesh?" before Johnson followed up with: "Is she as lovely in real life?" The answers, it may not surprise you, were yes and yes.

This is the kind of series of which networks dream, because it seems almost invulnerable to changes of personnel or circumstance. And yet, to me, the format has always seemed hopelessly flawed. Because the show is required to fulfil so many different remits – star interviews, regional reach, current affairs, human interest – the celebrity guests sit on the sofa with the co-hosts, while filmed reports on a variety of topics are introduced. This applies to every booking, regardless of rank: even David Cameron, on a recent appearance, got a conversation with gaps rather than a whole show.

On one recent edition, the star turns were Torvill and Dean, whose ice-rink reminiscences were interrupted by reports on fighter pilots in Libya and a London council's campaign to stamp out garden eyesores. In an attempt to smooth the lumpy structure, the presenters are encouraged to discuss the subjects of the films with the sofa guests. So Jones asked Torvill: "Jayne, how much do gardens matter to you?"

Later, trying to segue from the skater to an "exclusive performance" by the musicians who will play at William and Kate's wedding, Jones produced the gem of all awkward junction questions: "Jayne, did the band of the Welsh Guards play at your wedding?"

The ice queen replied: "Er, no."

But The One Show, at least for the moment, can get away with such gruesome miscues because, as current sporting jargon has it for an unattractive but efficient performer, it is "doing a job" for the channel. So too is OK! TV. Conversely, Daybreak and 10 O'Clock Live will now benefit little from good moments or editions because the media perception is that they began weakly. Unlike in paediatrics, in broadcasting it is almost impossible to overcome a difficult birth.

•Daybreak is on ITV, Monday to Friday at 6am. 10 O'Clock Live is on Channel 4, Thursdays at 10pm. OK! TV is on Channel 5, Monday to Friday at 6.25pm. The One Show is on BBC1, Monday to Friday at 7pm.